Iraq – blood for oil, war for neocon corporate interests and U.S. hegemony only
Libya – no blood, no oil. Obama’s motives pure because, well, good women are running the show for him – Hillary, Susan, Samantha – and everyone knows that when women (and the French of course) run a war good things happen!

Iraq – weapons of mass destruction what weapons of mass destruction?
Libya – no weapons of mass destruction because, well, okay, because Bush invaded Iraq and Gaddafi shit his pants and gave up his nukes. Pshew!

Iraq – benign dictator who never hurt anyone, wasn’t a threat to his neighbors, did not support terrorists, and, through the Oil for Food program, only wanted to share his oil with Europe in exchange for food and medicine for his long suffering people
Libya – Gaddafi is acting like a big jerk.

Irak is still on-going. Maliki went to Iran. To protect the Shia's interest. And, the sunni's lost. They wanted to go in. They were hoping to lay their hands on Basra. Now, in Basra, Maliki brought in the Chinese to work the oil fields. We got BUPKIS.

Libya's a different story. ALL the oil wealth goes to Ghadaffi. And, he's been buying off only the top tier of politicians: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair. And, Sarkozy all got more money than you can imagine!

Despots are the rule for arabs. There isn't any democracy. They are all tribal. And, they all kill each other all of the time. In Irak, we tried to put up barriers. Ditto for Afghanistan. And we've lost men and treasure. Nothing to show for any of it!

Libya has a despotic goon who kills his own people. What has just happened is that Ghaddafi decided to DEFY the call to STOP! I'm not even sure he will be killed. Obama doesn't expect him to leave. But he has to "OBEY" ... and he has to stop killing his own people!

I think this will be wrapped up in a few days. The lunatic, Daffy Duck, before, went nuts when Reagan just threw a missile into his tent.

Don't expect democracy to blossom out of this hell hole.

This time, though, the House of Saud got scared! We couldn't scare them, no matter what we said or did.

I don't think Obama loses points on this one.

And, I do think political races are competitive. While no one here is gonna vote for Obama. The universe of voters includes more than just white people!

Sometimes? Ya just gotta back off of the insults. Let the dems keep it. They think hitler analogies work. I think they're stupid.

And, I think you can see Obama emerging, against the republican competition UP, rather than down. (That's really my worry.)

Libya? Don't expect an economic engine to come roaring in. Japan, on the other hand, has all my good wishes for a recovery. And, yes. That, too, can be an economic boon, ahead. Because the Japanese people are gangbusters at being great citizens.

Now, I'm not saying Obama can't make mistakes. But sometimes you need to win because you have the best players! You don't brag about winning when the other team fumbles.

We should just target Gaddafi, kill him and get out of dodge.Let the British and the French handle this one without us after wacky takes the dirt nap. The Europeans are being noble this is a no blood for oil war... oh wait, my bad. Libya sorta has oil...isn't it 8 years to the day the W started bombing Iraq? There is a certain irony in this.

Mogget said...Actually, Libya does have mustard gas. I understand we have a satellite on overwatch.

==============Has mustard gas?? So did the Canadians and Rhodesians and British Antiguan native corps volunteers 100 years ago in WWI. Not a problem that merited public panic and "satellite scanning of the threat to Western Civ".

Mustard gas? Pound-for-pound, a cluster bomb is deadlier.

===========Carol Herman - "Libya has a despotic goon who kills his own people."

Bush started that moronic meme ...it's one thing when an evil regime kills outsiders...but magnitudes worse when a person or regime "kills their own people"!!!!

Iraq had the backing of the US Congress. And WMD's weren't first on the list, we've received precious little oil from Iraq and, if nothing else we've helped to set up a fledgling democracy there.In Libya, we know that Daffy is a murderous tyrant, who started killing lots of his citizens AFTER they rebelled against his rule. It's a CIVIL WAR in Libya and I don't see where the U.S. gets the legal right to intervene, especially when we don't know WHO or WHAT the "rebels" are or represent. They could be the Muslim Brotherhood, trying to pull off a triple play: Egypt (which IS arming and training the Libyan rebels)Tunisia and now Libya.And we're about 30 days late to be intervening over our "moral" outrage.

I suppose we might target the mustard gas if it appeared it were going to be used. If it's not going to be employed then it's easiest and safest to destroy it under more controlled circumstances.

How would you know it was going to be used? And if Gadhafi were in the process of deploying it, how wasy and safe would it be to destroy it then?

If the very existence of a weapon is important enough to be invoked by the administration as a casus belli, then it's equally important to neutralize it as soon as possible, before any of it can be used against the people we're trying to support.

Come on. If it's there, we should target it. If it isn't there, then somebody's blowin' smoke up your ass.

to Peter Hoh who asked: "The problem with the 'Gadaffi killed his own people after they started to rebel' is what do you do when it's pointed out that is essentially what's going on in Bahrain."It's simple - either you STAY OUT of a Civil War, or you, on purely moral grounds, try to get a ceasefire. And again, who is it that's "rebelling" in Bahrain? I don't want the US bombing or chucking cruise missiles without knowing which side we SHOULD be supporting. I'd rather have Daffy in Libya that the Muslim Brotherhood cranking up a version of an caliphate. Or, for that matter, Iran which appears to be backing the "rebels" in Bahrain.

Obama has entered this without a clearly articulated principle. At best, everyone else seems to think it's a good idea.

Protect civilians, both Libyans and foreign nationals.

Excerpts from the text of resolution 1973 (2011):

“The Security Council,

“Recalling its resolution 1970 (2011) of 26 February 2011,

“Deploring the failure of the Libyan authorities to comply with resolution 1970 (2011),

“Expressing grave concern at the deteriorating situation, the escalation of violence, and the heavy civilian casualties,

“Reiterating the responsibility of the Libyan authorities to protect the Libyan population and reaffirming that parties to armed conflicts bear the primary responsibility to take all feasible steps to ensure the protection of civilians,

“Further condemning acts of violence and intimidation committed by the Libyan authorities against journalists, media professionals and associated personnel and urging these authorities to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law as outlined in resolution 1738 (2006),...“Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,

“1. Demands the immediate establishment of a ceasefire and a complete end to violence and all attacks against, and abuses of, civilians;

“2. Stresses the need to intensify efforts to find a solution to the crisis which responds to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people and notes the decisions of the Secretary-General to send his Special Envoy to Libya and of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union to send its ad hoc High-Level Committee to Libya with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution;

“3. Demands that the Libyan authorities comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, human rights and refugee law and take all measures to protect civilians and meet their basic needs, and to ensure the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian assistance;

“Protection of civilians

“4. Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council;

“5. Recognizes the important role of the League of Arab States in matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security in the region, and bearing in mind Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, requests the Member States of the League of Arab States to cooperate with other Member States in the implementation of paragraph 4;...http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm#Resolution

Sorry folks but I am tired of hearing nothing but Wisconsin [jeez there are 56 other states we could be talking about] and the Middle East [rich in despots and oil] but if you've seen one Arab tyrant, you've seen them all.

To former law student - it seems to me to be one of the least effective ways to protect innocent civilians to throw Tomahawk Cruise Missiles into Libya; it has been reported, how accurately one can't tell, that "innocent civilians" are sitting in or on targets that would be natural for France, GB and the US to attack with boms or missiles. And France, at least, has been reported to be targetting Lbya's tanks and armored personnel carriers - with what effect I don't know - but again that has to put civilian lives at risk when those tanks etc are fighting in an urban environment. Not to mention I don't see how tanks and such are appropriate targets to enforce a No Fly Zone.And, again, Obama has not bothered to get the consent of Congress here, unlike Bush did with Iraq. I'm awfully nervous siding with "rebels" when we don't know who they are or what they represent.

Oh, please. Bush did NOT start any meme about Libya! I read about Libya on Michael Totten's blog. When he was there (a few years ago), he took pictures. It looked like the backside of the moon!

Ghaddafi's picture was everywhere. People were afraid to talk. The "housing" was built by the Soviets. And, garbage was thrown in the street.

Totten pointed out that there were no schools. No middle class!

As to what's happening to Ghaddafi, now, Sarkozy is LEADING! And, it's a "message" from the UN!

Ghaddafi decided to DEFY what he was told by the UN; which was to stop killing his own citizens.

This will probably all be over in a few days.

Now, in the Mideast, ALL the countries are run by despots! This isn't going to change any time soon.

And, sometimes after we get rid of one despot what comes along next is worse. Don't expect any miracles! Besides, finally, lots of Americans have stopped buying into peace parades. We're slowly learning some countries are inhabited by savages.

I also don't think this is a stumble for obama. Imagine springtime blooms, and he comes up smelling like a rose.

Realwest, that's a good question. I don't know if we really know who the Libyan rebels are. Jeffrey Goldberg talks about meeting some anti-Gadaffi protesters in Egypt in this post, which raises more questions than answers.

Peter -- I think we can rest assured that the CIA and the intelligence services of Iran, Israel, France, and several other nations have people (who may or may not themselves know it) in the rebel forces.

At the hearing on Thursday, Bill Burns, the undersecretary for public affairs at the State Department, was asked repeatedly whether military action in Libya would warrant congressional approval. And each time, he told the senators that he couldn’t provide a yes or no answer to that question.

Wow! It seems to me that the War Powers Act authorizes the President to use military force *if* we are under threat **or** if Congress authorizes it. Neither of those is the case here. Some are saying this is more like Clinton's bombing in Bosnia. In other words, if no one complains, the President can bomb whoever he wants with no approval whatsoever from Congress.

I like what Lugar is saying. I think the Founders placed the responsiblity for declaring war with the Congress for a reason. Deciding to go to war ought to be hard. It ought to be something we have to have awfully compelling reasons for. And it ought to be something that is debated fully and completely and voted on by the People's representatives.

As to this thread... I don't know how one can argue that Iraq and Libya are not more similar than different. It seems to me the boundaries are blurring a bit between the left and right over **wars of choice** and lots of folks are unhappy about that :-)

The run-up to the first Iraq war has that curious incident with April Glaspie's remarks. I don't know if that counts as a diplomatic screw up or not, but had the blogs existed back then, it would have been picked apart.

It was a mistake to encourage rebellion in Iraq on the part of the Kurds and the Shiites in Basra, and then to abandon them once they took up the cause. As far as I know, the Libyan rebels did not receive any encouragement from us or any of our allies.

We weren't alone in Iraq either. Still aren't, even if quite a few of the coalition bailed when the immediate situation became the long term one.

Yes - and exactly my point. Bush supporters had to continuously point out that there was a coalition, because the left - and when I say "left", I mean the media, in part - pushed the "go it alone" meme, as though that were the truth.

Seven, they didn't have much of an armed insurrection, which is why a battalion of loyalists was about to wipe the rebels out.

That isn't to say that I'm refuting your suggestion. If we did aid and abet the uprising, we didn't do a good job of it. Your theory would have more weight had the rebels managed to deploy some SAMs. As it was, they seemed to be poorly equipped, which is in keeping with the way Gadaffi has managed his army (keeping them poorly equipped and poorly trained, while spending his resources on his select forces).

Carol -- You are right that Libya is a proxy war between the United States and Iran, but wrong -- I think -- to suggest that the rebels are somehow fighting more fair or that the United States isn't also behind the rebellion.

We have someone in place to jockey in the power vacuum. That's just common sense. So do several other factions.

You all are being obstreperous. Farley is arguing against military action. The quote you've pulled out of context is stating that he hopes events unfold better than they did in Iraq and not as some neocon lite justification as to why this particular intervention is better that the other one(s). Is this willful or are you guys really this naive?

Seven, I'm not falling for propaganda re. the civilians. I'm repeating what has been used as the justification for getting involved, and wondering how that principle might be applied elsewhere -- not that I expect pols to put principles first and foremost. Lugar, however, was doing so in his statement earlier in the week.

Peter -- My understanding is that Kaddafi (he of the unspellable name) has brought in a multitude of mercenaries from a particularly brutal West African sect of nomads. I am not making this up.

I'm not saying we fomented the revolution. I am merely saying that we have some people in place to try to take power in what will be chaos should Kaddafi leave. I imagine there is money involved, too, and guns. But, as you say, not much.

Seven, I was aware of the mercenaries. The key lesson from Egypt is that if a dictator has a reasonably independent military, he runs the risk that the military will stop supporting him. Of course, this is an old lesson. Gadaffi knew how he came to power. He wasn't about to let that happen again. His elite security forces act more like a private army than a national one. That's been key to his survival.

He thinks it is a bad idea.The US acted, and he hopes it turns out better than Iraq, ergo more "contrast" less "compare". But he has his doubts, which are explicitly stated before and after the quote pulled out of context, by the harpies.

I wrote: "Obama has entered this without a clearly articulated principle. At best, everyone else seems to think it's a good idea."

That doesn't say what I intended it to mean.

I should have said: Obama has entered this without a clearly articulated principle, other than the fact that several of our allies seemed eager to give it a go. I don't think "everyone else was doing it" is a legitimate principle.

First, I didn't think that Meade was the kind of loser who resorts to hyperbole to make a point. That is, I thought he was smart enough to know that such exaggeration only proves that the exaggerator can't get by w/ reality.

But, even worse than hyperbole, is his use of lies to make a point. The timeline of Gaddafi's nukes goes:-W bombs Iraq-Gaddafi tries to ship in nuke components after W bombs Iraq, i.e. W's bombing encouraged (not discouraged) him to acquire nukes.-Brits catch Gaddafi-Gaddafi gives up the earliest (most easily reconstituted) aspects of nuke program-Everybody makes nice, Gaddafi remains the "evil doer" he's always been, and he gets to do oil business w/ the West, and he gets to jubilantly welcome home an American killing terrorist. -Rs (like Meade) tell us this is a wonderful outcome, thanks to W.

The reports in the archive disclosed by WikiLeaks offer an incomplete, yet startlingly graphic portrait of one of the most contentious issues in the Iraq war — how many Iraqi civilians have been killed and by whom.

The reports make it clear that most civilians, by far, were killed by other Iraqis.

That's the New York Times, if anyone wants to know.

As for the number of servicemen who gave their lives - even one is too many for my taste, but if you think about it, far more than that died on the tiny island of Iwo Jima in roughly a month in 1945.

Carol -- I don't doubt that some of the rebels are being supported by Iran. In fact, I am quite sure it's true. However, you have to think this through. We would not be bombing Libya's government army if by doing so we were supporting an insurrection by puppets of Iran. You have to trust, in a situation like this, that you don't know what you don't know. And that the American military and executive branch is not full of idiots or traitors.

The truth is much more complicated. Like in Egypt, the rebels are made up of a multitude of people financed in a multitude of ways. They agree on the most important thing right now: get rid of Kaddafi, whatever way. Once that's over, the splintering and the potential political catastrophes begin.

We would not be bombing Libya's government army if by doing so we were supporting an insurrection by puppets of Iran. You have to trust, in a situation like this, that you don't know what you don't know. And that the American military and executive branch is not full of idiots or traitors.

I know that there are unknown unknowns. But I don't see how trust comes into it, and I certainly wouldn't want to vouch for the competence of the entire executive branch.

I suspect we're going to discover that we've made some very big mistakes. Trouble is, we don't know yet what those mistakes are.

One thing that bothers me is the apparent assumption, by too many on both the left and the right, that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

And that the American military and executive branch is not full of idiots or traitors.

No, both are full of naifs and fools.

To paraphrase a commenter from Volokh Conspiracy, this should be called: Operation, We've Learned Nothing.

The US will get more involved, there will be mission creep, France will go home and turn on whoever is left, the US will be stuck holding the bag once again and a lot of Americans will die for no fucking reason.

If we don't like Gaddafi, lets stop being such goddamn hypocrites, go in, kill the bastard and leave. It's what we should have done in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lesson of the latter should have been if you fuck with us, you die (and we don't rebuild your backward, loser of a country.)

Moreover, if we're going to intervene when a dictator passes some threshold of assholeness, then why didn't we intervene in Zimbabwe--Mugabee makes Gaddafi look almost normal. And let's not get started on the crazies that run the shit hole known as North Korea.

(It also seems to me that there are enough weapons in Libya that if the majority of the people wanted Gaddafi gone, he'd be gone. He's not, so who, exactly, are we intervening on behalf of? And how do we know they aren't bigger assholes and/or crazier than Gaddafi?)

It's HILARIOUS to read the commenters justify going to war against Libya, vis-à-vis their avowed pacifism WRT to Afghanistian and, especially, Iraq.

Don't forget to "expand" the comments, as DK recently overhauled their site (I do believe in order to make it look more like HuffPo!).

A sampling:

Although, just to be clear, we need to leave...Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't support those wars. Iraq was a load of shit, and the war on terror in Afghanistan is just causing more terror. But the way I see it, Libya is actually a good cause.

He got this reply:

I would tend to agree...but a war is a war. A "no fly zone" doesn't include bombing tanks and armoured vehicles. As long as people know exactly what is being justified, and are honest about attempting to separate just wars from unjust wars, that's O.K.My virulently pacifist son is all for the Libyan action. I said, "as long as you admit to not being a pacifist."

HAH!

One poor soul asks:

Why is only Libya a good cause?...The Taliban in Afghanistan and Insurgents in Iraq (and Saddam Hussein before them) are every bit as ruthless as Gaddafi.

Someone enlightens him:

I think it makes a...difference that we are not acting against the will of the international community, the Arab League, or the Libyans themselves (Gaddafi's faction obviously excepted).

To which he replies back:

well of course we said all of those things about...Iraq, too. (shrug)

EXACTLY!

So who MADE Obama go to war?

ANSWER:

I gave to Obama some...credit for the delay. It seems that he did not want that war personally and he was trying to delay it. But it was not his decision to make. The military-industrial complex decides what wars need to be started and the president simply complies. [...]

Gotcha. The military-industrial complex.

Fortunately for us, this commenter believes history will repeat itself.

hopefully, he'll just let Cameron try to act like Churchill and Sarkozy try to act like DeGaulle and get back to mending the economy.

“‎The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Who said that? Barack Obama, back in 2007. So let's see. Unilaterally authorized an attack, which does not involve stopping an actual imminent threat to the nation. But but but they didn't attack us! This will increase the terrorist threat! (Quick, let's dredge up the NIE reports that show us attacking them only makes the terrorists more angry, quick let's get some inflated casualty numbers, after those smart bombs start hitting their targets and civilians start dying. My estimate, 10 gajillion civilian deaths, all of them innocent orphans who were just flying kites.Congressional approval? Nope. Coalition of the willing? Not much more so than in Iraq. I guess hope and change meant that Obama would start drinking the neocon cool aid. We are all neo cons now, liberals, including your savior. I'd say welcome to the fold, but I'll be too busy spitting in your eye, you twats.

cubanbob wrote:We should just target Gaddafi, kill him and get out of dodge.

But, but, but, that's assassination, which is against international law. Don't you know the nazis used assassinations? So you are for assassinations? You heartless monster!Considering the umbrage directed at water boarding, I can't imagine the caterwauling from the left if we were to assassinate a leader of a country that didn't attack us. Actually, considering the lefts reaction to unilaterally bombing a country that didn't attack us, it wouldn't be too loud after all. Carry on.

Former Law Student wrote:ibya: Citizens rise against a brutal dictator.

Iraq: US punishes a brutal dictator.

Except we've had multiple uprisings of Iraqis against Sadaam to no avail? Ever heard of the Kurds or the Marsh arabs? We in fact even told opposition groups to rise up and fight Sadaam (remember the ILA?) then stood aside while they got killed by Sadaam.

Lombardi Chick wrote:Yes - and exactly my point. Bush supporters had to continuously point out that there was a coalition, because the left - and when I say "left", I mean the media, in part - pushed the "go it alone" meme, as though that were the truth.

Goodpoint. The other infuriating meme suggested by the left and the media was that we rushed into war in Iraq? How many months were we discussing going to war in Iraq? That was somehow a "rush". That has to be the longest rush to war I've ever seen.

and of course lets not forget Obama saying we have to stop simply air raiding villages and killing civilians. He's become quite the fan of air raiding villages of late be it here or in afghanistan/pakistan. But when he drops bombs, they're filled with hope and change as opposed to munitions. So, no worries about civilians.

Obama is on vacation in Rio with the extended family and that's why he didn't seek congressional approval. As soon as he gets back the weather will be nice enough for another round of golf, and then if Magic Johnson or whatever basketball player shows up, then a little hoops action. Then there is the current basketball playoffs, so don't be in a big rush for him to be getting any congressional approvals. Besides, Hillary! is now running the show. It ain't easy dodging sniper fire on a daily basis, but she's probably getting direction from Bill, so there's nothing to worry about. Lighten up.

This whole situation would be too funny for words, if it did not involve real people losing their lives, and millions of dollars which we will presumably borrow from our friends, the Chinese.

Meanwhile, over at The Atlantic, we now get to see Andrew Sullivan's head explode in real time, as he desperately combs through emails from "readers" trying to find a defensible explanation for the actions of the Dear Leader. I almost feel sorry for him!

Also, watching the news last night, it was fun to see the anchors tie themselves in rhetorical knots while trying to defend Obama's actions. I actually heard someone say that we were pressured into military action by the French! THE FRENCH!!!! I was laughing in both terror and amusement at what has become of our "mainstream" media.

Yes indeedy, let's protect all of the innocents in the Middle East & Africa from their evil, murderous "leaders". That should inspire an almost infinite to-do list for the UN & the US military, (now apparently under UN control) - Zimbabwe, Syria, Bahrain & by extension, Saudi Arabia, whose military is helping them, Iran, et al, ad nauseam.

And ya gotta love Obama, letting Qadaffi (or however you care to spell it) know that we intend to leave in "days, not weeks," after which he can presumably get back to the business of killing John Q Libyan. Nice!

Obama isn't going to let any American troops die. War in general goes against his core convictions. This will be like Serbia, but with far less commitment.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's 'cruise missile diplomacy' just like Clinton. You think Hillary had a few suggestions about how to look tough with little risk? There will no US ground forces involved. Agreed.We still have some Pan Am 103 business to conduct with Quaddafy and his spawn. The books need to be balance in regard to this blood debt.

President Obama no more wants to send the military to deal with Libya than he wanted to cut a deal with Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts. He is politically astute enough, however, to understand that if there is another large scale Islamist terror attack on the United States because of his utterl lack of foreign policy diligence, the Democratic Party will cease to exist as a political entity. A Democrat wouldn't be able to get elected dog catcher after such an event and the President knows it.

The "Fact" that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction would be news to US soldiers who suffered nerve gas poisoning from an IED with a sarin agent 152mm artillery shell on May 16, 2004 and mustard gas burns from another 152mm shell IED attack on May 2, 2004.

The US Military asked the media to keep these facts quite because it looked at the time that the IED makers didn't know they were using chemical arms in their IEDs.

In fact, the media not only kept it quiet, they went full roar in the "Bush lied, People died" mode over the "lack" of WMD.

So in June 21 2006, when the threat of Saddam's artillery ammunition dump IED's had subsided, Republican Senator Rick Santorum and Republican Representative Peter Hoekstra (Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) held the press conference saying over 500 chemical weapons had been found and defused by American and Allied troops.

See:

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2006/06/what-threat.html

The media continued to ignore the information that didn't meet their "Frame" in 2006 just like they have not reported the true extend of public employee union death threats & violence in Madison, Wisconsin these last few weeks in 2011.

Free Frank Warner tracks an interesting statistic which he calls the "Freedom Count." In short, he tallies references to "freedom," "liberty" and "democracy" in speeches by presidents and dignitaries in an effort to determine their commitment to those goals. The score for Obama's Libyan rescue speech: a big fat zero.Freedom Count in Obama’s Libya rescue speech: Zero

So let me get this straight. It's ok for the US and France to go bomb the Libyans because the Arab League (made up of countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and Egypt which have all shot democratic protestors in recent weeks) says so?

I think the only way to come away with a "win" here is to kill Gaddafi, and quickly. Aside from his desire to dress in garish window drapes, what makes Gaddafi nuts or cowardly?

It would have been quite easy for him, at many points over the last few years, to retire to a life of wealth. The fact he hasn't might make him nuts, but probably doesn't make him cowardly. He also seems pretty willing to fight back or negotiate either one. He bombed PamAM 103 in '88 because we bombed him in '86, because he sent agents to bomb a German nightclub earlier in the year. As recently as 2009, he got the Brits to send the SAS to train his troops in counter-terrorism techniques.

I point this out because what it points to, to me, is that while he doesn't have militarily potent forces, he's probably got the capability and the willingness to go kill a bunch of random civilians and the sheer evil to do it. Unless we effect a quick end to him, I can't imagine he'd sit around and not try striking back.

That's a 'contrast' to Saddam, since Saddam didn't seem willing to do that sort of thing, whereas Gaddafi has a history of it. Is this war to save a bunch of Libyans going to be worth it if he blows up a plane or bus full of Americans?

" [Qaddafi's] probably got the capability and the willingness to go kill a bunch of random civilians and the sheer evil to do it.(...)

That's a 'contrast' to Saddam, since Saddam didn't seem willing to do that sort of thing, whereas Gaddafi has a history of it."

Point of fact: Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds. Saddam instituted a "children's prison" in the North that is now a museum of this atrocity. The number of Kurdish men killed was such that women voting in the Kurdish north outnumbered male voters by something like 3 to 2. Saddam was engaged in the genocide of the Marsh Arabs.

USAID: ""We've already discovered just so far the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair on November 20 in London. The United Nations, the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) all estimate that Saddam Hussein's regime murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people. "Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 290,000 Iraqis have been 'disappeared' by the Iraqi government over the past two decades,""

I don't understand how such things just *disappear* down the memory hole.

The new liberal talking point - Libs are now for regime change through violence, and wars of choice that involve carpet bombing of civilians and which will increase terrorism, on targests which have not attacked us, and which are diversions from the real war on terror.What is the Obama doctrine? THe same as the Bush doctrine? So really, the only real problem that libs had with Bush was that he was from the wrong party and couldn't say the word "nuclear"? S

Synova wrote:I don't understand how such things just *disappear* down the memory hole.

It's easy. Elephants never forget, rock n roll never forgets, but Libs forget all the time. Democrats forgot they even voted for the Iraq Liberation Act.And just for edification for the libs who say that Sadaam never did anything bad, and we were just picking on him, one of the key talking points of the Bush justification for war was that one of the reasons we knew Sadaam had various WMD's was because he already used them on his own people! Again, the libs didn't get the memo. THey were probably too busy watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 to bother actually reading history books. You wonder why the libs didn't send in human shields to protect Qaddafi. And at any rate, isn't the only reason that Qadaffi threatening to do terrorist acts because of his fear of us attaking him? Just like Iran was only trying to get nukes because Bush was such a bully.

After reading FLS's comments the only thing I can think is "So that's what pretzel logic looks like".I notice that Garage and Ritmo aren't even bothering to show their faces. What's the matter? Cat got your forked tongues?

There is not one military principle in that enumeration you think is. Every one is at best a legal principle and really only a political one.

Sending in a nation's armed forces is not done by moral, intelligent persons unless there is a clear military mission, as compared with a diplomatic/legal one, with a clear military objective the achievement of which will redound to the material benefit of the nation issuing those armed forces.

Rational, decent men and women do not spill blood, especially their own countrymen's blood, unless there is something material and very precious to the country of those men and women -- not to them personally, to their country! -- that can be obtained from the objective area in such a way as to justify its cost in blood (and other treasure).

War is material, it hurts both ways. It is physical. Unless it has a material, physical gain at its end that is worth the hurt both ways that it produces, war is sickening.

FLS, you live in a legal cloud away from corporeality. Your mind is in cloud castles, which is to say fog. War is not about law, humanitarian or otherwise, it is about money, women and/or land.

When people have a humanitarian crisis, they should solve it themselves. In the case of Arabs and Mohammedanism, those two words fairly define a humanitarian crisis, especially the word Mohammedanism. "Savages" I believe Carol_Herman calls them, accurately. So, let them be to each other what they are, how else are they going to learn human ways?

And if they poke their heads outside their sand box and charge someone else, then whack them into oblivion, uproot them from their native lands and resettle the same with humans, as Jews did Palestine. It's an old remedy and it works when carried through. And it has an initial military objective that is eminently worth the cost in blood and treasure of achieving it.

Finally, if humanitarian concerns justified military action, then US Armed Forces would not be debarred from operating as a military force on US soil. Humanitarian concerns are the purview of police and citizens themselves through their voluntary organizations, including para-military ones if deemed necessary, and their elected or otherwise chosen representatives. The law is an ass. It is made for man, not man for it. Authority always and only resides in the corporality of the citizenship as a whole who, in consequence, are their own keepers, individually and as one. Professional armed forces have no mission to uphold that authority, only to express it when ordered.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the AP reports that "Now, unprecedented numbers of U.S. law enforcement agents work in Mexico, and high-profile arrests occur monthly. U.S. drones spy on cartel hideouts, while U.S. tracking beacons pinpoint suspect's cars and phones."http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_drug_war_us_cops_in_mexico

Does this mean we are escalating out involvement in Mexico?

Air power, without troops on the ground, simply can not do the job. Never has. Witness Dunkirk. Even Nagasaki and Hiroshima required troops on the ground to follow up. Say, given all the open air nuclear tests from the 50's and 60's, how much do we need to worry about those reactors in Japan?

The contrast gets even clearer when someone does not support a war / conflict supported by the progressives… Isolationist, probably a war profiteer who makes more money the longer this drags on, and maybe even a supporter of the other side (you know, so and so worked for a bank that once gave the enemy regime a loan once)…

@Maguro: "The 90s are back, baby! There's a Clinton running things and we're killing people that mean us no harm with Tomahawk missiles."

Another Clinton in high office, another No Fly Zone over an Islamic country. Is this a marital game of one-ups-manship the Clintons are playing against each other to see who can go down in the history books as having run the most awesome air campaign ever?

The Authorization for use of military force (AUMF)was a "Declaration of War" under the US Constitutional meaning of the term.

Nope. A declaration of war is the congress directing the executive to go to war. What the congress did for GWB was tell him "we're shirking our constitutional responsibility, you can blow shit up if you want, or not, it's your call."

Synova,Yes, Saddam killed a bunch of his own people. Gaddafi has too, but the point I was getting at is that Gaddafi has quite a history of going out and attacking civilians in *OTHER* countries as well, which is a little different.

I suspect he'll fight back by sending out agents to blow up some random civilians here in the US or Western Europe.